Lewis Career Essay

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

Lewis, Charles

The Career of Woman. London: Bull, 1830.

Descriptive Essay

Charles Lewis published a volume of poetry titled The Career of Woman in 1830. This collection of poetry includes not only the main poem, but some miscellaneous poems as well. These poems include; "Content: A Fragment," "Lo Svegliare" (a Matilda), "La Sera", "A Sketch", "Sonnet: To the Ocean," "To the River Medway", "The Spanish Exile's Adieu to His Country", "Stanzas Written in Sickness", "Sonnet: To the Eagle," "To Nature", "The Minstrel's Plea", "The Mourner to His Lost Child", "Resignation", "Sonnet: To Thomas Pringle," "Sonnet: To My Father," "Life", "Cythera", "To Matilda: On Presenting Her with a New Album," "To the Same", "Midnight" "The Watcher: Part of the 139th Psalm Imitated", "The Child's Prayer", and "Mors Janua Vite."

The primary focus for this description and analysis is the volume's title poem, "The Career of Woman." The poem starts with a dedication to a man by the name of J.A. St. John, Esq. The author ask for both commendation and encouragement of this man to whom he is dedicating his poem. By dedicating his poem to this man, Lewis publicly declares his gratitude to his friend. Before the text of thepoem itself begins there is a preface by the author questioning whether he should have even printed a preface to the work. He answers his own question, however, by seeming to realize that while there may not be many people reading his poem, these people and their opinion of his work should be treated with respect, which he presents as a reason for the preface.

The easiest way to analyze this poem is to look at the poem in sections.

The entire poem discusses the historical position of women in many different aspects of their lives. The first section of the poem looks at religious associations of women in history. For instance,

          By what perversion strange of God's decrees
          Doth the secluded maid aspire to please
          That God to whom the fertile earth resounds,
          With songs of fruitfulness through all her bounds?- (16)

The poem suggests that women are closely associated with the Christian religion. According to Lewis, the Christian religious system seems to leave women with no cares in the world and with an ordinary sort of life. This is one reason why these women would join the Christian religion establishments. It seems that Lewis believes that Christian religious establishments were essentially good, but that there was a contradiction for women in that Christian places of worship were places in which these women never fully realize what their real hopes and dreams were for life, because they were so sheltered in the organization.

The next section of the poem continues to look at the means by which the Christian religion may be seen to be trapping these women in the establishment. Lewis looks at celibacy in this section when he states:

Hath no inquiring eye with clearer sight,
Pierced the dark gloom of that mysterious rite. (17)

The Christian religion is in a sense denying the young woman love. It is forcing these women to never lose their innocence. The poem in this section also discusses the process of becoming a nun. In the case of a nun, the woman is not becoming the bride of any man she loves, but is instead wearing the veil of her life of virginity. The notes at the end of the poem help the reader to understand why the women subdue themselves to a life which offers them no hope of escape. This section suggests that the only other time the woman will be in a comparable ceremonial setting is at her funeral.

The poem goes on to discuss the elaborate housing of the women in Turkey. The notes use excerpts from a narrative of a late traveler seeing a woman at a port, to describe how these Turkish women live. Lewis uses lines such as the following in his poem to discuss this elaborate living arrangement for these women:

See where the crescent glitters to the day.
O'er Moslem heads, whose pride is to obey. (23)

The women are portrayed as living in the most spacious of homes, and according to the description nothing but richness engulfs the living space. Although these women live in elaborate homes, they are described also asworking all day to prepare meals for their families.

The following section of the poem works with the idea of native women in the South Seas. Lewis uses lines in his poem to account for various practices by women around the world:

          Or turn to that far-celebrated land—
          That realm of beauty, where with lavish hand
          Hath Nature woman's lovely form arrayed. (24)

This excerpt from the poem suggests women in the South Seas live a relatively rough and rugged life. Although the men of the region look weathered from exposure, according to Lewis the women do not take on the same roughness of their land but rather look well kept.

Lewis writes a section discussing how women are taken from their homeland and become the victims of a love crime by males of another so-called tribe of the Australian continent. These events become present in the lines of this poem:

Let the far distant south its tales unfold,
Of savage love, and passions uncontrolled. (25)

These women are first beaten by the men who take them and they are then taken advantage of while they are unable to help themselves. The females' family members apparently do not express outward feelings of resentment towards the males who did this, but rather fight back when an opportunity arises.

As we can see so far throughout the poem, Lewis has attempted to bring to light the different events occurring in the lives of women throughout the world, from an historical and cultural view. In the next section of the poem Lewis suggests that women are held to a higher standard than one might generally think. He uses lines such as the following to illustrate this idea:

           Far less repulsive to the heart that doom
           That places woman's duties midst the gloom
           Where winter holds his long and dreary reign. (26)

The sort of women he primarily discusses in his poem are what the lower class women look up to. The women portrayed in this poem do many things that some people would never have dreamed of. They do things such as take care of the children, cook the meals, and generally take care of any family needs that spring up. In terms of this domestic behavior, Lewis seems to be portraying the women in a good light compared to the men. It is true of course that the men in the poem apparently still spend every day working to provide for the family, but these women are doing much more time consuming tasks. Often it is felt by the men and women in the relationship that they are performing duties of equal value, and thus they show this through their actions.

The following section builds upon the preceding section, where the idea of a lasting relationship is described as being most beneficial for both partners, and as a result it emphasizes the things men do to satisfy their partner. Lewis portrays this idea in the following lines about a simply Northern man who

          Bids to outstrip the wind his swift rein-deer
          Seeks his snow hut, and, resting from his toil,
          Greets his dark mate and shares with her his spoil. (26)

The men in this society move about by and get to their women by use of animals. They want to be with these women, and their animals apparently know exactly where to go to get them there to their destinations. The animals seem willing to do anything to please their owners, while the men would in turn seem to do anything to see the women in their lives.

The poem goes on to discuss the importance of home for not only women, but men as well. Lewis uses the following lines to examine how home is defined by the men and women:

Where lovely woman in her proper sphere
Asserts her station as man's fair compeer. (28)

To the British man, home is thought of as a place where comfort can be found. This comfort comes to man because he knows he can find his lady there, which suggests that these men see their own home and comfort in terms of the women who define them.When a home is thought of, it seems, with it comes the idea of marriage. Lewis reminds his readers that many marriages in foreign lands are arranged by family members, so that sometimes the couple to be married do not even know each other in advance. The women are nevertheless left with the idea that these men have promised to love and protect them, and so the women want to do good for the men in their lives, even though it may take time for them to love one another.

One would think that the man of the house is in control of all things which happen there, but on the contrary, the Spartan women knew how to rise above the men in their lives. Lewis illustrates this in the poem quite well:

          Leading in either hand a lovely boy,
          Exclaimed, with all a Roman mother's pride,
          "These are my jewels-I have none beside."
          Thus did the mother's love and patriot's flame
          Blend in the boson of each Spartan dame. (29)

It is explained in the notes following the poem that these women knew how to govern the men. Mothers would give their sons advice before they took the battle field. The advice would be, "Return with it, or return upon it." These mothers knew they had given birth to baby boys just so they could fight for their country along with the other men in these woman's lives. If the boys who went out fighting for their country would return return entirely unharmed, ithat could even be a source of great grief and dishonor, because these boys were supposed to go out and fight and — if necessary — lose their lives for the ones they loved.

While men fought for their countries, the women would do anything they could do to help them. Lewis brings to light the idea that women would go out onto the battle fields and many times lose their lives, just in trying to give their men something to drink. This is shown in the following lines from the poem:

          These hath she dared; and these been proud to dare—
          Proud e'en in death the welcome fate to share
          Of him her warrior-love-her heart's sole tie. (37)

As one can see through these lines, women would do anything to help their men. Many times these women would even fight on the battle field along side the men, but would be disguised so as not to show their identities as women. They knew they were not allowed to be out on the battle field, but many would do it anyway.

When the men would die on the battle field, their bodies would be burned by the women who survived them or who might chose to die on the funeral pyre with them. Lewis shows this piece of history through lines in the poem:

The funeral pile with eager hands illume,
And there the living with the dead consume. (42)

These women wanted nothing but to be with their husbands, and thus tortured themselves as their husbands were being burned too. This was a brutal ceremony, but the women felt it was necessary to show their love for their husbands.

As one can see from this descriptive essay, Lewis was making a point to portray the historical lives of women in his poem, The Career of Woman. At the beginning women were seen as needing to stay pure through the act of joining a nunnery, but this soon changed. Women found important places for spiritual existence outside of places like convents. These women began to bear children and take care of families they might otherwise never have dreamed of having. Many times marriages were set up by the family, but measures were generally taken by the couple to make things work for their families. Women are protrayed as doing a great deal for their families, and as being willing to do anything for them. We see such acts of pure selflessness in this poem. Women would even die along with their husbands, to show the true feelings of love. Throughout this poem, Lewis illustrates how the duties and lives of women have changed throughout history.

Works Cited

Lewis, Charles. The Career of Woman. London: Bull, 1830.

Note: Much of the information referenced in this essay was from the notes following the actual poem.